1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a bill-damage discrimination system incorporated in an apparatus for handling bills, such as a teller machine, a bill-binding machine and the like. More specifically, the present invention pertains to a bill-damage discrimination system wherein the bill-damage discrimination level can be set by an operator.
2. Prior Art Description
In a known bill-damage discrimination system, there is provided a level-setting switch to set a level in accordance with which it is judged whether a bill being transferred through the system is damaged or not. A bill judged to be damaged is discriminated relative to clean bills and is ejected from the system. This type of system is, for example, disclosed in Japanese Patent Public Disclosure No. 59-52394, wherein there is provided a detection system comprising photoelectric transfer elements for detecting a set of characteristic data for each of a plurality of bills representing different degrees of bill damage. The detected characteristic data are stored in a permanent memory means, and the data are then modified for use in setting bill-damage discrimination levels. By means of a level-setting switch, an operator can select a bill damage discrimination level. Thus, a bill with a degree of damage that is higher than the selected level is discriminated and separated from clean bills.
The known discrimination system, however, is at a disadvantage in that the judgement, levels of bill-damage discrimination are fixed and cannot be changed by an operator, who can only select a level by the level-setting switch. Further, the relationship between the selected discrimination level and the actual degree of bill damage is unknown to the operator, requiring that actual discrimination using the selected level be performed in order to recognize this relationship.